Character Creation
Introduction The first thing you need to do in order to play a game using the Equinox system is creating your very own character. Of course, if you want to, you can do a little research on the setting and the rules beforehand, but the purpose of this guide is to help you to create a character even if you never saw anything related to those before. Hopefully, you will learn enough to play while you are creating. Algorithm Step 1. Creating a general concept Try to imagine a general concept of your character, what he or she would be, looks like, what are his or her preferred methods of combat, what does he or she know and can do etc. If you are having problems with this step, try to go with one of the basic stereotypical builds like warrior, rogue or a mage. Or you can ignore this step altogether, but it is not recommended, as you might spend a lot of time on making your choices otherwise since you will have no idea what you want to do. Also, having a general concept at the start helps to create a character with mechanics assiting with character's portrayal. For example, let's try to create a "smooth criminal" type thief. He is suave, stylish, and very professional. He will be a young human called, say, Daniel Greenhill. He favours stealth and coercion over brute force. Step 2. Getting character points While this is not an actual step, it's a very important point of the character creation process. Because all the numerical values your character will have you must directly or indirectly get for Character Points, you will need to know the number of them you get. Usually, for a typical campaign, the recommended amount of Character Points is 75, but you need to ask your Game Master if he or she went with this number or not. Daniel Greenhill from our example is created for an average campaign and is an amateur adventurer, so he starts with 75 CP. Step 3. Choosing a race At this point of character's creation process, you must choose his or her Race (and a Subrace, if available). This will affect a lot of minor things, but, ultimately, you can choose the race of the character almost as the last step. Mostly it leads to race-specific Backgrounds and provides a few racial Characteristics, however, it doesn't affect anything else mechanically. Daniel Greenhill is a human. Step 4. Setting Primary Attributes This step is the first time when you can spend (or gain) CPs you have. You get the average value (5) for each one of your Primary Attributes (Constitution, Strength, Charisma, Agility, Intelligence, Perception, Willpower). You can either increase the attributes score by spending CPs, or get more CPs by decreasing the attributes score. The amount of CPs you spend or get is depending on the level of the attribute you will have after this and is cumulative. You can read more about this in the Buying Attributes section. The costs are as follows: Daniel Greenhill is a thief and doesn't like physical confrontation, so we can get some Character Points by decreasing his Strength and Constitution by 1 point, granting him 5 + 5 = 10 CPs. On the other hand, he is supposed to be agile, charismatic, intelligent and perceptive, so we'll raise these attributes: 1 in CHA, 2 in AGI, 1 in INT and 1 in PER, so we spend 11 + (11+12) + 11 + 11 = 56 CPs. In the end, we have 75 + 10 - 56 = 29 CPs left. In other words, we've spent approximately 80% of our starting CPs on the attributes, and this is around the recommended ratio. So, after all that, Daniel has CON 4, STR 4, CHA 6, AGI 7, INT 6, PER 6, WIL 5. A very important note that will come into play later is that your final attribute scores affect the amount of points you can spend on skills relevant to these atributes. Step 5. Calculating Secondary Attributes After setting primary attributes, it's time to calculate Secondary Attributes. These values are important too, but they don't affect any other values like primary ones. As such, this step could be done at any time. *Hit Points = CON * 5; *Mana Points = INT * 10; *Basic Damage = STR / 2 (rounded up); *Physical Action Points = 5 ±modAGI; *Mental Action Points = 5 ± modINT; *Immediate Stamina = CON * 5; *Daily Stamina = Stamina * CON * 2; After calculating Secondary Attributes, we'll see that Daniel Greenhill has 20 HP, 60 MP, his Basic Damage is 2, PAP is 7, MAP is 6, Stamina is 20, and Daily Stamina is 160. Step 6. Choosing Characteristics .*Under Construction* Step 7. Choosing Backgrounds .*Under construction* Step 8. Buying Skills .*Under construction* Skills will be hugely affected by backgrounds *Under construction* Every skill is governed by one primary attribute. This means that you add a bonus from this attribute to your skill roll (modAGI for Agility, for instance), but that's not all. The level of attribute decides the amount of points you can spend on training the skills governed by it and this amount is equal to double the attribute score. These points, referred to as Skill Points from now on, are independent from Character Points: you can only spend them on skills and only on skills governed by the specific attribute. For instance, Daniel can spend 8 Skill Points on Constitution skills because he has 4 CON, but he can spend 12 Skill Points on Intelligence skills. Skills define everything your character does. Every action he or she takes is described, mechanically, by one of the skills (or several ones for really complex actions), so it is very important to pay attention while choosing them. Weapon Skills Each type of weapons has its own skill governing them. Some of the weapons can have several types at once and can be used as one or the other for every attack. For example, a short sword can be used to slash at your enemies or to try and pierce them with a quick lunge, so it fits both Slashing Blades and Piercing Blades categories. All weapon skills are Agility-based. The list is as follows: *Daggers *Slashing Blades *Impaling Blades *Two-Handed Blades *Blunt Weapons *Piercing Weapons *Two-Handed Impaling Weapons *Two-Handed Blunt Weapons *Two-Handed Slashing Weapons *Two-Handed Piercing Weapons *Light Throwing Weapons *Medium Throwing Weapons *Heavy Throwing Weapons *Bows *Crossbows *Shields *Balanced Combination* *Dueling Combination* *Unbalanced Combination* *Hand-to-Hand Combat *Exotic Weapons** .*Governs the skill of using weapons in both hands. .**For every weapon that is marked as "exotic" you need to buy this skill again from scratch. Other Skills .*Under Construction*